Decontamination: By physical or chemical means: to remove or otherwise reduce biological or chemical agents to a level where a hazard no longer exists and the surface or item is rendered safe for handling, use, or disposal.

Engineering Controls: A device or vessel (e.g., sharps disposal containers, self-sheathing needles) that isolate or removes the bloodborne pathogen hazard from the workplace.

Exposure Incident: A specific eye, mouth, other mucous membranes, non-intact skin, or parenteral contact with blood or other potentially infectious materials that result from the performance of an employee’s duties.

Handwashing Facilities: A facility providing an adequate supply of running potable water, soap and single use towels or hot air drying machines.

Infectious Waste: Any material containing an infectious agent as defined by Ohio EPA.

Licensed Healthcare Professional: A person whose legally permitted scope of practice allows him or her to independently perform the activities required by paragraph (f) Hepatitis B Vaccination and Post-exposure Evaluation and Follow-up.

Miami University: The Miami University main campus in Oxford, Ohio and all its regional campuses.

Occupational Exposure: Reasonably anticipated skin, eye, mucous membrane, or parenteral contact with blood or other potentially infectious materials that may result from the performance of an employee’s duties.

Other Potentially Infectious Materials (OPIM): 1. The following human body fluids: semen, vaginal secretions, synovial fluid, pleural fluid, pericardial fluid, peritoneal fluid, amniotic fluid, saliva in dental procedures, any body fluid that is visibly contaminated with blood, and all body fluids in situations where it is difficult or impossible to differentiate between body fluids. 2. Any unfixed tissue or organ (other than intact skin) from a human (living or dead). 3. HIV-containing cell or tissue cultures, organ cultures, and HIV- or HBvac-containing culture medium or other solutions; and blood, organs, or other tissues from experimental animals infected with HIV or HepB.

Parenteral: Taken into the body in a manner other than through the digestive canal (e.g., bites).

Personal Protective Equipment: Specialized clothing or equipment worn by an employee for protection against a hazard. General work clothes (e.g., uniforms, pants, shirts or blouses) not intended to function as protection against a hazard are not considered to be personal protective equipment.

Prophylaxis: Measure taken to maintain health and prevent the spread of disease.

Regulated Materials: Liquid or semi-liquid blood or OPIM; contaminated items that would release blood or OPIM in a liquid or semi-liquid state if compressed; items caked with dried blood or OPIM and are capable of releasing these materials during handling; contaminated sharps; and pathological and microbiological materials containing blood or OPIM.

Research Laboratory: A laboratory producing or using research-laboratory-scale amounts of HIV or HBvac. Research laboratories may produce high concentrations of HIV or HBvac but not in the volume found in production facilities.

Serological: Pertaining to the serum (or watery) portion of the blood.

Source Individual: Any individual, living or dead, whose blood or other potentially infectious materials may be a source of occupational exposure to the employee. Examples include, but are not limited to, hospital and clinic patients; clients in institutions for the developmentally disabled; trauma victims; clients of drug and alcohol treatment facilities; residents of hospices and nursing homes; human remains; and individuals who donate or sell blood or blood components.

Sterilize: The use of a physical or chemical procedure to destroy all microbial life including highly resistant bacterial endospores.

Universal Precautions: An approach to infection control. A concept that assumes that all human blood and certain human body fluids are treated as if known to be infectious for HIV, HBvac, and other bloodborne pathogens. The process of implementing Universal Precautions involves a series of steps that a worker must strictly follow to avoid exposure to blood or OPIM (e.g., personal protective equipment).

Work Practice Controls: Controls that reduce the likelihood of exposure by altering the manner in which a task is performed (e.g., prohibiting recapping of needles by a two-handed technique).